In a Woman’s Day article in 1975, a few months after the incident, Gary told a reporter: “Without the board he would have chomped me in half. I couldn’t see its face. Just a big, grey-black mass and I kicked at it, screaming out ‘no, no, no’.”

Gary told the magazine he was having nightmares about the shark, which he said “felt like wet and dry sandpaper”.

“I didn’t feel any actual pain but I knew what was happening. I could feel him shaking me but I couldn’t feel him tearing into the flesh or anything. It was like a dog had got hold of my shirt and was shaking me. I thought I was gone,” Women’s Day reported.

Mick (pictured below) said these days he still surfed as often as he could but the attack on his brother made him more aware in the water.

In the weeks after the incident Mick said he “kept seeing things” coming at him in the water, which stopped him surfing for a little while.

He said the fatal attack in WA should remind surfers of the dangers of murky conditions.

“You’ve got to be alert in the water, always looking around and seeing what’s going on,” he said.